"And is Captain Fergus in the navy?" I asked.
"In the Reserve. He has been since the beginning. They were only
waiting for a ship."
"And the Arcadia?"
He turned and smiled. "She is enrolled too, but it is a secret. I don't
know why a secret."
So that explained her activities. There might be other secrets; and I
thought of Elizabeth and Bobby. Elizabeth could be trusted to keep a
secret well, and Bobby knew it. And Elizabeth had been away much of the
time for two weeks or more, always going in the Arcadia wherever she
went, but usually home for the night. By "home" I mean our house. I
thought she was but a guest of Mrs. Fergus, but there might be some
other explanation. It did not matter. Elizabeth was Elizabeth, and Eve
rejoiced to see her face with its crown of beaver-colored hair, and her
calm and smiling eyes. I have not yet decided what is the color of her
eyes, but they suit Eve.
And I looked up, and I saw the Arcadia just stretching her sails as a
man will stretch his arms and legs in preparation for the using of them.
She had been there all night. And I saw that noble yacht of Pukkie's
casting off from the stage in the little harbor of Old Goodwin's, and
Pukkie and Elizabeth in her. And Pukkie saw me--he had been waiting to
catch my eye--and they both waved to me as the boat caught the wind and
stood out of the harbor. She was tiny, that yacht of Pukkie's, but she
was complete; as complete as the Arcadia. Indeed, she was not unlike
her, save that one was a schooner and the other a sloop. To see that
boat of Pukkie's out upon the water with no other near enough to compare
them, you might think she was of any size, even a big boat--until you
saw the two huddled in the cockpit or one of them stretched upon the
deck, almost covering it.
"See," I said to Old Goodwin, "there goes Pukkie."
He stood at the head of the gangway, and he smiled a happy smile.
"I see. He will go near all the lobster buoys, and the fish traps, and
the rocks uncovered by the tide, and pretend that they are submarines.
He has told me. And he pretends that the Yankee is a vessel that has
been sunk by a submarine. What it is to be a boy!"
"And what are we but boys?" I said. "We pretend that there are
submarines in all the waters from Montauk to Chatham, and we go about
looking for them. It is much more satisfactory to have something that
you can see, as Pukkie has,--and just as useful, so long as we must
pretend. Submarines! They well-nigh turn me sick."